


Never Ever Getting Rid of Me

by lostin_space



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Kyle Valenti Appreciation, medical interns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-18 16:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21580462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostin_space/pseuds/lostin_space
Summary: Kyle and Michael end up being interns at the same hospital and they both strive to be the best.-Day 1 of Kyle Valenti Appreciation: firsts
Relationships: Michael Guerin & Kyle Valenti
Comments: 17
Kudos: 48





	Never Ever Getting Rid of Me

**Author's Note:**

> I chose first year of being medical interns as my first! Yes I watch a lot of grey's anatomy!  
> As per usual, let me know if I'm missing any tags, hope you like it!

“Many of you won’t make it.”

Kyle snorted to himself as he listened to the Chief Surgeon of Brown Davis Memorial Hospital and looked around at all the brand new interns. Technically, he was an intern too, but he already knew he wasn’t going to have a problem showing them up. He was at the top of his class in med school and he knew it was going to be the same here. He had no issues jumping into everything. He was going to excel if it killed him.

“Most of you will switch to an easier specialty, while the rest of you either leave completely or will be asked to leave. Statistically, maybe three of you will actually become attendings in a hospital‒possibly this hospital. So look around at your competition, prepare for the game you’ll be playing and how you plan to play it. And welcome to your first day as surgeons.”

Cheers echoed through the room. There were fifteen interns and five residents that would be taking three of them each under their wing. Kyle wanted to get the best one so that he could get to the best attending and he could _be_ the best.

As they were being assigned residents, he felt very pleased to know he going to be under Dr. Taussig. He’d read a few articles she’d published (as he had read articles by all the residents) and found hers to be the most impressive. It meant he would also get to be impressive.

Kyle took in the little group he had to compete against the most since they were also under Taussig’s wing. The first one was plain enough to not be a threat. He could easily withstand them any night and could probably outsmart them on any day. He didn’t really have a problem with any of the faces in the room, actually, until he landed on one.

Michael Guerin.

Kyle went through a lot of thoughts at the sight of him. The first being ‘oh, shit, someone I went to high school with’ and immediately followed by ‘what the hell is he doing here?’ which rammed straight into the memory that he did better in high school than him without even trying.

Before Kyle knew it, he arrived in front of the man he hadn’t seen in years.

“What are you doing here, Guerin?” he demanded. Micahel looked up at him and smiled slowly.

“I’m sorry, didn’t realize you owned the place,” he said. He was so smug; he always had been. It’s why Kyle hadn’t liked him in high school, though he was aware he was shitty back then now. It was hard to bully someone who just smiled at you. The only time Kyle remembered him ever caring was when at prom when Kyle had gotten in a fight with Alex.

“You know what I mean,” Kyle nearly hissed. Michael tilted his head back and huffed a breath.

“It’s called student loans, a 32 on the ACT, 2140 on the SAT, and a 4.0 GPA. I also graduated at the top of my class at Stanford.” he answered, “Point is, I earned my place here.”

Kyle huffed, glaring at him. Why of all people did Michael Guerin have to be a threat?

“You scared, Valenti?” he asked, grinning in a way that made Kyle even more pissed off. He didn’t like this. Not one bit.

“You’re the one who should be scared.”

-

“Nice work, Guerin.”

Kyle glared as he heard the fourth ‘nice work, Guerin’ this week from Dr. Graham who happened to be one of the best surgeons in the damn hospital. Hell, the state. And Michael just smiled like he earned it or something.

Which, maybe he did because he was the first intern who was allowed to do an appendectomy by himself and he fucking excelled at it.

“Had fun doing sutures all day, Valenti?” Michael asked as he walked past him, bumping shoulders. Kyle took a deep breath and still gathered himself enough to follow Dr. Taussig into a room in the peds ward.

“Paul Spencer, age 14, has been diagnosed with cholestasis, which is…”

Kyle went to open his mouth, but Michael spoke faster.

“An obstruction of bile flow leading to the liver,” he answered, finishing it with a charming smile. Taussig nodded with that annoying approving smile. Kyle cut in.

“But he is currently not responding to any dietary changes which means he will need a cholecystectomy,” Kyle continued. The kid in the bed’s eyes went wide.

“That just means you’ll need your gallbladder removed, it’s not as scary as it sounds when you put it in big words,” Michael said, smiling at him. The kid nodded but didn’t look any less terrified. Kyle wondered if it was because they were just spewing facts. Nah.

“Alright,” Taussig said, looking between the two of them, “Have we decided on an approach?”

Again, Guerin spoke before he could.

“Well, the scans we took show a lot of adhesions and it would be very risky to try something minimally invasive,” Michael explained, “So it’s more than likely going to have to be open.”

“Dr. Taussig, I was wondering if one of us could operate today?” Kyle said.

“And I already have OR experience,” Michael added.

“Which is exactly why I should be the one who does it,” Kyle capped off. Taussig looked between them and sighed softly before looking down at Paul.

“Who would you like to perform your surgery today? Up to you,” she said. Paul blinked between them a few times before looking back up to her.

“Can you?”

“Of course.”

Michael shoved him out of the way whenever they walked out of the room, glaring.

“You just cost me that surgery,” he accused. Kyle scoffed.

“I didn’t cost you anything! You’re the one who steals everything from me!” Kyle argued. Michael gave him a cocky smile.

“It’s not my fault I’m better than you,” he said simply. Kyle stepped into his space.

“Fuck you, Guerin, you are‒”

“Boys!” Taussig shouted firmly, glaring between them as she pushed them apart, “If you two don’t calm down, then neither of you are going to get to scrub in.”

“I apologize, Dr. Taussig,” Michael said, that charming smile slipping easily onto his face. Kyle was infuriated on a whole new level. Nothing that guy did was real. He faked all his fucking emotions for whatever the situation called for.

That was just something Kyle actually couldn’t compete with.

Taussig nodded as she looked between them. “Valenti, you can scrub in, surgery is scheduled for 13:45 and I want you to prep him. Guerin, go see if they need any help in the pit.”

Instead of being angry that Kyle got the surgery, Guerin just continued to look totally okay with being given shit work. He smiled through it and took his task. Kyle scoffed. There was no way that guy was a good loser‒he wasn’t even a good winner.

“Thank you, Dr. Taussig,” Kyle said to her and then swiftly turned to follow Guerin. No way he was going to the pit.

And he didn’t.

“I thought you were assigned to the pit,” Kyle judged as he followed Michael into the intern locker room. Michael looked at him like he’d lost it. And, yeah, maybe he had.

“Yeah, I am, and I was coming to put my phone in my locker because I don’t trust the people that come in there,” Michael said, looking down at the screen of his phone before putting it in his locker, “Aren’t you supposed to be prepping the kid for surgery?”

“I’m about to, I was wondering why you were blowing off your assignment,” Kyle said, though he suddenly felt a lot less confident about his accusation. Michael just stared at him, nodding slowly.

“Right. I’m not trying to steal your surgery. It’s a gallbladder removal‒that can happen any day. Go have fun,” Michael said.

For a moment, Kyle really thought that possibly he was overreacting. Maybe Michael wasn’t as much of a snake as Kyle had built him up to be in his head. Yeah, he was chosen to do the first intern surgery by himself, but that didn’t mean he was inherently any better or that he was deliberately trying to ruin Kyle’s career. This was a healthy competition, after all. This was supposed to just push him to do better.

So Kyle nodded.

Michael was checking his hair in the mirror whenever Kyle’s phone actually started ringing. He pulled it out and saw that it was his mom and, well, he couldn’t exactly _not_ answer. She would have his ass.

“Mom, I’m at work.”

“That’s great, but you promised me you were going to come to dinner two nights ago and never showed which is a problem because you promised me you were off. So, where were you?” his mom demanded. Kyle squeezed his eyes shut, cursing under his breath. He knew he forgot _something_ when he agreed to scrub in on that angioplasty.

He heard Michael scoff behind him, so he placed his hand over his ear.

“I had an opportunity I couldn’t pass up, Mom, Dr. Burton goes out of his way to keep interns out of his OR and‒”

“I understand that it’s important, but you do know that we haven’t seen you since you started this internship. I miss you, your dad misses you,” she said and Kyle closed his eyes.

“Listen, I promise that I’ll come by soon. It’s just been super hectic around here,” Kyle tried. He just heard that disbelieving hum from his mother.

Which led to him being guilt-tripped for a solid 15 minutes, both in English and Spanish.

“Mama, I‒ _Mom_ , I gotta go. I have a surgery.”

“Oh, you always have a surgery,” He almost laughed at that because absolutely no he did not, “You never have time to even speak to me anymore. I know you’re all fancy and adult now and I’m proud of you, but you do need to find time to talk to your parents. One day we might not be here, you know.”

Kyle sighed heavily, rubbing his forehead. “I promise, I will call you when I’m done.”

“You promise?”

“I promise, Mama, I love you.”

“I love you too. But I won’t hesitate to scold you if you blow me off again,” she insisted. Kyle laughed.

“I know, I know, I won’t.”

By the time Kyle got back to Paul Spencer’s room, he wasn’t in there.

He looked around in confusion before catching a nurse’s attention and asking her where the kid went.

“They took him to surgery,” he said and Kyle genuinely felt like he was going to explode. He couldn’t have been gone that long. Not long enough that he missed the damn surgery.

Kyle all but sprinted to the OR floor, bursting into the room that Paul Spencer’s cholecystectomy was scheduled to be in. Both Guerin and Taussig were scrubbing in.

“What are you doing?! This is my surgery!” Kyle argued. Guerin just smiled over at him and Taussig shook her head.

“You didn’t prep the patient and you were late to the surgery,” she said simply, “If you can’t do the basics of prep, how do you expect to get into the actual surgery?”

She went into the OR, leaving the two of them alone. Kyle glared at the asshole. How stupid of him to even think that he wasn’t that bad. This was just low.

“You said you didn’t even want this surgery, that it was a simple gallbladder removal, that it happens all the time,” Kyle hissed. He was seething. This was his fucking surgery.

“Yeah, but on a kid? That rarely happens and you didn’t seem like you wanted to do it, so I stepped in,” Michael answered, still just smiling all proud of himself. Kyle resisted the urge to hit him.

“I was talking to my mother!”

“So? You think running to Mommy is an excuse? Rookie mistake. Keep your phone in your locker and your pager on your belt,” Michael said, flicking water off his hands and onto Kyle.

Oh, he was going to kill him.

-

“Nice job, Valenti.”

Damn right it was a nice job.

Kyle had shown up early and managed to work his way into an aortic valve resection‒something he was given the chance to actually be hands-on with. He never gets that opportunity when Michael is around. But this time he wasn't around and, if Taussig's attitude said anything, he was late.

"Guess what I just did?" Kyle said, hyper and ready to brag his ass off. Guerin had done a lot on his own, but never ever an aortic valve resection. No, that was all Kyle's.

"Don't care," Michael said dully. It was so uncharacteristically blank that it actually caught Kyle off guard. He looked at the guy who was usually at his throat and fighting for a spot, and instead found a guy who seemed to be tying his shoes in slow motion.

"An aortic valve resection," Kyle bragged anyway, though he stared and proudly waited for Michael to be irritated. It didn't come as soon as it should've, so Kyle prodded more. "Which you didn't get to do because you weren't early. Must suck to suck."

Michael didn't even react. It was almost irritating. Actually, it _was_ irritating. What was the point of bragging if there was no payoff?

"Did you not hear me? Aortic valve resection. My hands, not yours," Kyle pressed even more. Again, no payoff. "Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?"

"I don't care," Michael sighed again, not even sounding like he cared enough to not care. He just got up and slumped out of the locker room.

What the hell?

Kyle sat there for a moment and tried to piece together why he was actually so unlike himself. For the last six months of their internship, they'd been in constant competition. Michael would steal a surgery and Kyle would be pissed. Kyle would get a fantastic surgery and Michael would be pissed. It was the way the world worked. It wasn't any fun bragging with no one to brag to.

Something was wrong.

-

"What's wrong with Guerin?" Kyle asked Pitch, the other intern under Taussig's wing.

Pitch shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well, what changed? He was fine two days ago and now he's, like, weird."

"Why don't you ask him yourself if you're so concerned?"

"I'm not fucking concerned," Kyle snapped. Pitch held his hands up in defense.

"You're watching the dude like a hawk and keep asking people what's wrong with him, sorry that I thought it was because you cared," Pitch said defensively and then pretty quickly exited the situation. Kyle silently mocked him before heading to the locker room to check his phone since he was technically on break.

He didn’t, however, expect to walk in on Michael Guerin hunched over a piece of paper and sniffling.

When he realized someone else was in the room, he very quickly shoved the note in his back pocket and stood up. His eyes were a little bloodshot, but otherwise, he might’ve been able to pass off that he wasn’t crying. You know, if Kyle hadn’t seen him. And all he could do was stare.

“The fuck are you looking at?” Michael asked, pushing past him and going God knows where.

Kyle took a step further into the locker room and again tried to process the weirdness that was Michael Guerin when he noticed that the note he’d been holding had fallen onto the bench. He immediately went to and considered not reading it and just putting it in Michael’s locker. Then he considered not reading it and just giving it back to him. But then he considered _reading_ it and that won over because he was really fucking curious. So he unfolded it.

The first thing he noticed was that it was covered in hearts. All of the margins and the empty spaces were filled in with hearts and scribbled ‘I LOVE YOU’s, making an outline to the actual letter that made Kyle’s heart skip a beat. He recognized that handwriting. Double-checking, though, to make sure, he looked at the bottom of the letter that was so very clearly signed by Alex Manes. It would’ve made him feel a whole lot less shitty if he hadn’t bullied the guy senselessly for four years.

Of course, they would be a thing.

_Dear Michael,_

_I MISS YOU. I’m so glad to hear that your internship is going well and I’m so glad that you like the hospital and I’m so, so, so glad that you’re happy. I’m so excited to come home and see you. God, I can’t even think straight, I just miss you._

_Two days ago (11/15 for me) a buddy of mine got the clearance to go home for vacation and I just wanted to scream. I know my job is important and I know they can’t spare me, but it’s been too long. I miss you so much it hurts. I want to smother you in kisses and I want to hear you ramble about surgery and random medical stuff I don’t understand. I’m so excited to hear every story every day! I miss your voice!_

_I LOVE YOU!!!!_

Kyle folded it back up without reading any further. It very quickly went from gooey _’I love you’s_ to straight-up raunchy love letter material within a few paragraphs and Kyle wasn’t interested in reading about his current enemy’s love life. Or his past friend/enemy’s love life. Fuck.

Kyle wasn’t entirely sure about how the two of them got together, but he did know that Alex had left to join the fucking army or something. Which, they had known he was going to do that since they were children, but the idea that Alex would be actively going into that while maintaining a relationship sounded farfetched. Especially since no one had even known that Michael Guerin was anything but a straight asshole. He didn’t know how that could’ve even come about‒much less became something serious enough to make Guerin cry over. 

He tucked the letter into his back pocket and walked to the cafeteria.

Sure enough, Michael was sitting by himself like he did every day. Only, instead of the typical book open in front of him, he was just staring blankly into his salad. Kyle sat across from him.

“Found this,” he said simply, tossing the note on the table. Michael stared at it for a second and then the realization hit him once he registered all the hearts and quickly snatched it up.

“Valenti, I swear to fuck, if you‒”

“I’m not gonna make fun of you,” Kyle said. It felt weird to be nice to him, but also he wouldn’t want to be repeatedly shit on if he was missing the person he loved who happened to on the other side of the world. “Do you… do you, like, wanna talk about it or something?”

Michael looked borderline offended but mostly disgusted.

“No,” he spat out, scoffing, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t actually want to talk to you about it,” Kyle said back. Guerin nodded, though the irritated look on his face didn’t go away.

“Good,” Michael said. Kyle watched him, watched as he stabbed his fork into his salad. They both took deep breaths. This was weird.

“But,” Kyle said, despite the weirdness because he would want it if the roles were switched, “If you ever do, then‒”

“Okay, Valenti,” Michael said, less snippy than before but still definitive.

Kyle nodded, “Okay.”

As he got up to head back to Dr. Graham, he heard a grumbled ‘thanks’ and it made the weirdness in his system fade.

-

“I killed someone.”

“You didn’t kill them, they just died.”

“Yeah, they died while my hand was _in_ their chest.”

Kyle heard Michael sigh from the other side of the on-call room and then the click of the door being locked. Kyle couldn’t take his eyes off the floor even though he couldn’t really see that. All he could see was his hand right beside a heart and feeling it stop beating. He knew this was apart of being a surgeon and he’d had patients die before, but he didn’t expect it to feel so… real to have someone die like that.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Valenti,” Michael said, sitting beside him, “No one could’ve saved the guy. You did your best.”

“But you didn’t _feel_ it,” Kyle argued, his heart still aching as he replayed the moment over and over in his mind, “I… I should’ve done something.”

“There was nothing to be done,” Michael reassured. Kyle shook his head. “Look, the other day I almost gave a kid insulin. He was allergic to insulin and I almost gave it to him because I didn’t read his chart first. The only thing that stopped me was a nurse telling me before I fucked up. _That_ would be killing someone. What you did was just apart of the gig.”

Kyle took a deep breath and tried to steady his mind. He needed a drink or a fuck or _something_. He needed to not be able to think about that man anymore. He needed to think of literally anything else. He dropped his head into his hands.

“I need a distraction,” Kyle grumbled, trying to will away the feelings from his chest.

Then Michael’s foot was placed on top of his.

“I’m pretty good at that,” Michael said softly and Kyle found himself just staring at the shoe that was on his. A lot of feelings flooded his mind, crashing into the ones before. They swirled hectically, but most of them ended with a simple _’okay_ ’.

Instead, he said, “Aren’t you playing into some stereotype by hitting on a straight guy?” Michael immediately snatched his foot away.

“I was just trying to he‒”

“I know, sorry,” Kyle sighed, shaking his head, “I’m not, like, against it.” Michael didn’t put his foot back and Kyle silently cursed himself for letting his defensive impulses act. “What I meant to say was I thought you were seeing someone.”

Michael sighed loudly, “I am. But he’s super fucking smart and on a special task force which means I haven’t seen him in a year and I haven’t heard his voice in a year and we are forced to communicate via letter because whatever the hell he’s doing, he can’t even send E-Mails without risking someone tracing him. So we have an agreement that we can fuck whoever we want while we’re separated so long as it’s only once and we’re safe.”

“Seriously?” Kyle asked, turning to face him. Michael was leaning back against the wall.

“Yep,” he said and the pain he felt about their situation was evident on his face, “I’ve never actually taken up the offer, but I know he has. I don’t blame him, though. He doesn’t really get much human interaction wherever he is.”

“When’s he coming back?” Kyle wondered. Michael quirked a smile.

“June.”

Kyle couldn’t even help but flinch at the solid five months he had to go. “Jesus, and you already haven’t seen him in a year?” Michael nodded slowly.

“Yeah, and I’m offering my services to you,” he laughed. Kyle rolled his eyes. “You need a distraction and you look like shit, no one not creepy is gonna approach you in a bar, and I’m 100% clean. But you’re straight so.”

“Yeah, but,” Kyle said, almost cringing at himself. He _was_ straight. He’d never been attracted to a guy before, not any in real life at least and not any like that, but he wasn’t repulsed by it. He was of the firm belief that if it happened, it happened. And, Guerin was right, he was probably the most trustworthy person to take his mind off the fact that he killed someone. God, that sounded bad. “I trust you.”

An annoyingly cocky smile found Michael’s face. “Aw, how romantic.”

“Shut up.”

“Nah, we can do this, just know you can’t catch feelings and that this is a one-time thing,” Michael agreed, cracking his knuckles and then moving to his knees. Kyle annoying got a bit excited. He was always one to try new things. “My baby’s my one ‘n only, so can’t go complicating shit.”

“Yeah, right, I don’t even like you as a person,” Kyle shot back, but he was already spreading his legs a bit to make room for him. Michael smiled up at him.

“Good. ‘Cause I’m still better than you.”

-

“You’re gonna do great, baby.”

Kyle watched with a little smile as Alex pulled Guerin into a kiss. They were preparing for their intern exam that would officially make them residents when/if they passed it. It just happened to fall in the same week that Alex had come home for a bit. Alex didn’t seem too keen on the fact that his boyfriend had become friends with his high school bully, but he seemed open to the fact that he wasn’t all bad.

“You too, Kyle,” Alex offered, leaning his head on Micahel’s shoulder. Kyle gave him a kind smile. He’d been working on trying to prove to Alex that he was better than he was in high school. Alex didn’t seem to hate him with a burning, fiery passion, just a little bit, so it felt like a step in the right direction.

“Thanks,” Kyle said, looking to Michael who was staring at Alex like he was the light of his life.

It seemed weird to think there was a time he assumed Guerin was completely heartless and cruel. Sure, he still was on some level, but he also had a lot of feelings in him. He was just fantastic at balancing them. Kyle was slowly but surely learning to do the same. He’d never admit that, though.

“Ready to get your ass kicked, Valenti?” Michael asked as they started to walk away from Alex. Kyle snorted.

“Yeah, right, like you’re gonna do better than me.”

“Oh, I _always_ do better than you.”

Kyle made a face at him which Michael returned and ended with them both rolling their eyes. The fact of the matter was, while Michael was a good doctor, Kyle was still running on the high from the solo whipple he performed a few days before and he knew he was going to ace the test. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that was he was going to fucking destroy it.

If he really needed Michael to destroy it too so they could keep pushing each other, then no one needed to know.

That’s just how it worked. They were a team.

**Author's Note:**

> also on my tumblr: spaceskam


End file.
